Monday, January 2, 2017

Top Five Rides. Twenty-Sixteen

Holy fucking shitballs! It's the top five already and I haven't got my popcorn ready. All the ladies and gents are here at the ballroom looking dapper as they are filling in.

Oddly enough looking back at the year it was pretty good. It was hard to narrow this list down but we did. Lets get going shall we...

#5 The Fat Bike Teaser Sessions. Gord and Kent met up with me as the first snowfall happened early in the season. We thought that the snow was here for good making us happy for our Winter bikes and sad for our Summer rides. The conditions were awesome until it got warmer out making things a bit dicy and gross. Credit Gord for the amazing cover photo.

#4 The Mod Yard Sessions Part 1 <> The Mod Yard Sessions Part 2. Two rides tied for number four as they were both very similar. I had a few after work rides working at the mod yard and it seemed like each one of them was absolutely incredible. This is when I made the notion that riding bikes on fine singletrack is similar to shooting heroin, and I still think I'm right.

#3 First of Two-O-One-Six. An unreal start to a great year. I even called it in the post and here we sit at number three. Unfortunately for Gord a bad cough forced his early departure. Eventually me and Jason had a great run in Terwillegar. the ride had featured chicks yelling 'Hell ya fat bikes!' and two rolls through Firemans. Pretty great.

#2 Frozen Trails and a Cold Empty Valley Second best ride was on the dubbed 'shitbike?' Say it ain't so.. Well it happened. A sneaky way the bike God's showed me that all bikes are awesome no matter what. Everything in this one was just pure electric awesome. Frozen singletrack and cold weather combined with no knuckle draggers on the trails was just too much. Also my introduction to Flat Pete.

#1 The Prodigal Sons Ride in Kananaskis. A trip that was supposed to happen with all the brethren members with some of their girlfriends in Jasper. As the date grew closer more and more people were added which in a kind way of saying... Rubbed me the wrong way. Bad communication and new additions to the group eventually made me and Gord go our separate ways. Riding something new in a small group was much more intriguing than spending the day with strangers on a trail ridden hundreds of times.

An incredible day where I could have pulled the bike over and died and never been happier. Also a day where I learned my riding skills are pretty crappy... Or maybe I'm just a true forty year old. Those descents were sick bro!